The topic? The region’s ongoing heroin epidemic that has contributed to numerous overdoses across the region in recent weeks.

About 75 people gathered at the War Memorial Building on Wednesday night for an overdose prevention forum hosted by the mayor and a number of local agencies to address the growing issue.

“The past few months have been some of the worst in terms of fatalities that I’ve seen in the four years I’ve been in my position,” said Hillary Dubois, coordinator for the Brockton Mayor’s Opioid Overdose Prevention Coalition.

During the forum, Dubois – along with Joanne Peterson, founder and executive director of Learn to Cope, and Heather Kennedy, program director of BAMSI’s COPE Center – taught those in attendance how to spot the signs of an overdose and what treatment options were available for people struggling with opiate addiction.

“It is important to understand that what happens in an opiate overdose is essentially someone stops breathing, and they will suffocate to death if there is no medical intervention,” said Dubois.

However, about 90 percent of fatal overdoses are witnessed by someone, Dubois said.

In an effort to combat fatal overdoses, those in attendance taught how to administer the drug Narcan and provided with the drug to take home.

Narcan, also known generically as naloxone, is a drug administered nasally that can reduce the effects of an opiate overdose for about 30 to 90 minutes, providing enough time for someone to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

Since Brockton firefighters began carrying the drug last week, they have successfully reversed eight opiate overdoses, said Fire Chief Richard Francis.

“Narcan treats the symptom not the problem, but Narcan saves lives and keeps people alive so that they can get another chance,” said Carpenter.

During the forum, Dubois also explained the overdoses typically can occur between an hour and three hours after drug use and that the longer someone uses drugs the more at-risk they are to overdose.

While many of the recent overdoses in the city have been attributed to heroin, Peterson also explained that prescription opiate drugs, such as Vicodin and OxyContin, are contributing to the epidemic as well.

“Most of the young people that we see today all started out with a pill,” Peterson said. “The pills that are out there will lead to heroin.”

During the event, Carpenter also expressed the need to arrest the dealers selling the drugs and find treatment for those who addicted.

To that end, Brockton Police Detective Thomas Keating, announced that the department had added three more officers to the unit and explained the Good Samaritan Law, which protects people who call to report an overdose from being charged.

Page 2 of 2 - “My personal philosophy is I want to put dealers in jail, and put customers in treatment,” Carpenter said.